


Atlas

by Flowerflamestars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Family Lore, Blood Magic, Childhood Sweethearts to Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Forbidden Love, Found Family, Friends! - Freeform, Harry raised by his godfathers!, Infidelity, M/M, Narcissa Black a certifiable babe, No Horcruxes au, Revenge Plots, Sirius Blacks canonical hotness, Sirius who doesn't go to Prison, Sometimes..you use that stupid privilege to Make a Better World, and tattoos, the Potter Legacy, with Magic!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:47:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerflamestars/pseuds/Flowerflamestars
Summary: He’d once loved his name, loved his family- but that was a different story.She was the only bright thing left- paler than the moon overhead, in long grey robes that hid the soot they were both covered in.On the edge of a forest, a two-year old charmed to sleep in a conjured crib by her feet, Narcissa looked down on him, and Sirius couldn’t breathe. Everyone was dead- everyone was gone- she’d had to pull him and Harry- Harry who didn’t have parents, who only had him now- from a burning building.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Atlas

Once upon a time, a princess was born early.  
  
Despite her hastened arrival, she was hale and whole, already crowned in silvery fuzz that would resolve into smooth blond silk, grey-eyed like the family that bore her.  
  
So pale, in a family that prized the dark, they named her not for their night sky, but a flower: _Narcissus_ , white blooming poison. Narcissa, youngest of her sisters, earthen asphodel.  
  
Her eyes had more star-bright silver than his, even from birth.  
  
Or so he’d been told. Busy being born ten hours later, a prince came into the world, an heir overdue, red and screaming. No matter his scrunched face, they named him light, the brightest star in the sky.  
  
He’d once loved his name, _loved his family_ \- but that was a different story.  
  
She was the only bright thing left- paler than the moon overhead, in long grey robes that hid the soot they were both covered in.  
_  
Covered- because she’d dragged him-  
_  
On the edge of a forest, a two-year old charmed to sleep in a conjured crib by her feet, Narcissa looked down on him, and Sirius couldn’t breathe. Everyone was dead- everyone was gone- she’d had to pull him and Harry- _Harry who didn’t have parents, who only had him now_ \- from a burning building.  
  
“Tell me you are not foolish enough to try to take the blame for this,” Narcissa said finally, watching him shake on the cold ground.  
  
A pure-blooded, highborn dream. She was perfectly beautiful, utterly composed, a woman who could breathe magic to life. It was hell to look at her, a homecoming to see her face.  
  
Sirius was too tired, too terrified for this. If he let himself _think_ he’d fall apart- and Harry- he had to keep himself together for _Harry._  
  
“ _Cissa_ ,” Sirius breathed, a plead, a long smokers exhale borne of muggle-shaped rebellion she’d recognize that said, _this is too much, “_ How did you know?”  
  
From her murdering, small-minded brute of a husband? Or had Narcissa herself risen through the ranks to know the Dark Lords plans?  
  
Sirius wouldn’t ask _why_.  
  
Instead of answering, she pulled out a locket, pulsing blue through the dark. Sirius had to close his eyes against the brightness.  
  
Children’s jewelry- but for the children they’d been of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black that meant platinum, a perfect dragon’s pearl suspended from the heart, a diamond clasp he’d magicked not to catch on her hair. 

“Blue,” She said, “ _Mortal peril_.”  
  
Sirius had borrowed his great uncle’s wand for the spell. Too young for a Hogwarts standard one himself, too old to not love her, but too young all over again to not believe love would last forever.  
  
Swallowing, throat aching from smoke and unshed tears, Sirius shook his head. _Too much- too much- after all this time-  
_  
Shocking him out of the panic, somehow the strangest thing since she’d apparated into step beside him, calming his screaming godson with a wave of her hand, Narcissa tucked away the necklace and sank down into the freezing mud with him.  
  
Sirius wanted to cry, to scream.  
_  
Lilly, James, his brother- his family.  
  
“_You haven’t been reading your correspondence,” Narcissa said, gently rocking Harry. She had a babe of her own at home, Sirius knew, _Draco._ Star names for a Black heir, but still a dragon for the crest of the husband who’d bought her.  
  
“I’m sorry, _Lady Malfoy,_ I’ve been busy fighting a _war”_ -  
  
“ _Sirius_ ”-

“Or did you forget the price on my head? Probably high enough you can replace those lovely robes you’ve ruined”-  
  
“You were betrayed,” Her quiet voice was a knifes blade, silken sharper than a curse. Only because he knew her inside and out could Sirius hear the mounting fury, anger that ran thick in their blood as familiar as his own face. “I did not spend the last year sending you messages for _fun_. Peter Pettigrew snivels at the Dark Lord’s right hand, that _filth_ Snape delivered his beloved to the death on a platter.”  
  
He’d known, _he knew_ \- but still Sirius saw red. Doubt and disloyalty. James possessed- _had possessed_ \- none. He’d trusted Peter like he’d trusted them all. Taken Sirius and Dumbledores suggestion that Peter was less likely to be guessed after, to be hunted, a chronically underestimated wizard.  
_  
It was his fault.  
_  
_Mea culpa_ , Lily would joke, the muggle nuance not quite understood, but Sirius knew the words. My fault- my own most grievous fault.  
  
Hard and fast as a striking snake, Narcissa grabbed his wrist, and shook her head. Once, twice. _Doubt and disloyalty_ , not just the highest crimes between boyhood friends, Sirius knew.  
  
Were all Blacks born mad, or did love make them so?  
  
“If you kill either of them,” Narcissa murmured, pale perfect hand grinding bone into his pulse, “They won’t let you keep him.”  
  
For the first time since he’d followed the cries, Sirius let himself look at Harry. Midnight curling hair, Jamie’s dark skin, Lily’s green, green eyes hidden as he slept. The last Potter, safe here in this moment with the last sane remainder of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.  
  
Sirius would die to keep this little boy safe. What was revenge if not something to save for another day? Grown slow and made poisonous with time and surprise.  
  
“ _Cissa,_ ” He asked, suddenly enough that she met his gaze. Grey on grey, the sky for her, storm green seawater for him; bloom and stars ill-placed. There was blood beneath the fingernails of the hand on his arm, fresh and red. “What did you do?”  
  
It was a mistake to ask.  
  
“I had to dispose of my _watcher_ to get away,” She said, simple, controlled once more, hand snapping away from him. “While the violence will please the Dark Lord, my husband will be less forgiving of the death of one of his revolting underlings.”  
  
She was pulling away, standing.  
  
A silent charm cleaned her hands, a second her robes. Lady Malfoy stood before him once more, ethereal silver.  
  
“Leave, Sirius,” Her tone left no quarter, clanging through his aching head. Damnation, salvation, the elocution of their youth still a fine and beautiful thing. He scooped Harry into his arms, the crib melting back away into leaves and branches. Evidence that they’d ever been here gone, Sirius stood.  
  
It was only then, with an inclined head that Narcissa shifted away, an owl in her stead, to fly home.  
  
Sirius watched its white wings until Harry began to stir, and apparated far from the ruins of his family.

***

It would take more than a day for Sirius to hear the news, buried in enchantment, hidden away in the place he’d made a home at seventeen, where the Potters had lived not so long ago.  
  
Narcissa learned it first, from the mark that faded and burnt away to nothing on her husbands arm.  
  
The Potters were heros, little Harry the Boy Who Lived, the Dark Lord dead and gone.  
  
While Lucius Malfoy mourned like a man whose every string had been cut, lost and unmoored, Narcissa smiled out at her gardens.  
  
Two weeks later, after a dark of moon night, those same gardens would bloom.  
  
Every tree and flower, vine and creeper, clad in silver blossoms. The county congratulated her magic, pureblood matrons delighting in silver on green- _the old Malfoy banner wasn’t it? If only the color were a little whiter._ Witch Weekly ran a spread on the flowers that would stay perfect for a year and day.  
  
Demure, her style admired, Narcissa didn’t give up the enchantment in interviews.  
  
But late at night, she held up a pale rose to the star-grey eyes it had been bloomed to match and smiled again.

***

Sirius didn’t see her again for one long year.  
  
Long not because he thought of her- Sirius had long ago acquired just enough self control to banish the glowing specter of her from his mind, a skill he would need more and more, surrounded by ghosts as he was- but because he was about as prepared to a be a single parent as he was to be alone in the world.  
  
He had help; house elves who Euphemia had taught to be unholy terrors, the Potter fortune now Sirius’s to watch over in addition to the tainted haul that was the staggering Black assets.  


_Everything they needed_ \- except for the parents Harry woke up screaming for.

By the six months it took for Remus to reappear- half starved, scarred in new deeper ways from infiltration of the darker werewolf clans- Sirius was exhausted, but setting roots.  


He was spared telling him the news- grief radiated from Remus Lupin’s tired, still youthful face when Sirius found him on the rolling lawns.  
  
It was nothing to pull him to his feet and silently drag him out of the cold into the house, up stairs they’d slid down as children to the third floor, to peer in on Harry as he slept in the palatial comfort of what had once been his father’s nursery. Warded to the hilt and covered in spells for safety and care, but Sirius still found himself checking on Harry over and over again, night after night.  
  
Like those long nights, Harry slept soundly on.  
  
Remus brushed the a thick, messy curls from his face with a shaking hand before stepping away.  
  
Harry didn’t wake, clutching tighter to a stuffed cat toy that was his favorite. Sirius didn’t like to think about _why_ \- how the Potter elves had listened to Harry’s half coherent sentences- _kitty_ being one the words he liked best- and sewn him a soft toy the same calico colors as the cat his mother had since she was fourteen.  
  
Gingersnap used to live here too, after all.  
  
It took only the slightest nudge to lead Remus down the corridor.  
  
Like all good wizard estates, memory lived long in magic- the house had begun changing around Sirius and Harry the moment they’d arrived, care sunk into the very stone and wood. The study he led Remus to was a small cessation of pain- nothing like the rest of the home, nothing like where’d they spent endless boyhood dreams.  
  
Some days, Sirius woke up feeling about a thousand years old. But it was impossible, looking at Lupin, scars and laugh lines, to forget that for what they’d lived through, they were all of twenty.  
  
Bumped toward an armchair, a decades worth of practice, Remus fell into the cushions at his push. Curled in on himself, lanky limbs made small, face hidden in two shaking hands.  
  
“ _God,_ Sirius.” He shook his head, knuckles white, “Padfoot. How have you, _how”-  
_  
Lump in his throat swallowed down, Sirius managed, “I’m all he has, Moony. We’re all he has.”  
_  
“I should have been here.”  
_  
It was a growl.  
  
It loosened something in Sirius’s chest, darkness that _cut,_ let out the bitter truth. “She tried to warn me.”  
  
Red eyes dry, Remus looked up. There was only one _her_ , where Sirius was concerned. Plenty of _he’s-_ Remus himself during a particularly disastrous three weeks as sixth years, which they’d mutually agreed did not even slightly work- spread out of over the years.  
  
The heart of a Black: volatile, dangerous, loyal unto death and beyond.  
  
“ _She_ ,” Remus started and stopped, face wretched. “No.”  
  
A laugh without a shred humor. “She did. Coded fucking letters, in the fireplace of Alpards old flat. You know her husband was neck deep in that shit- she knew about Pettigrew.”

The audible catch of Remus’s breath, name a scab pulled from a wound all too ready to bleed. “Azkaban?”  
_  
Pain and rage._ People failed to imagine Remus carried it, beneath those neat sweaters and sweet hazel eyes. Sirius had never been able to understand how people could be so stupid. Remus was a werewolf. Not made angry by transformation, rage formed slow over a life he hadn’t asked for, discrimination that had started when he was too young to remember anything else, but too intelligent not to see the difference.  
  
“Dead,” Sirius snarled, eyes stinging. “My crazed bitch of a cousin came after him in prison, for the Dark Lords death. Dementors put them both down.”  
  
The hand came back, rubbed temple to temple. “Sirius.”  
  
“No, Moony. Don’t ask me.”  
  
He rocked forward and grabbed Sirius’s hand instead, where his fingers were clenched tight enough to ruin skin. “I have to tell you something.”  
  
Green and amber, wolf eyes in the dark. The fucking war all over again, adrenaline a cascade through Sirius’s whole body. _“Remus?”  
_  
“When Dumbledore found me,” His best friend said, his last brother living, bitterness in every word, “He told me about where Harry is supposed to go.”  
  
For a second, there was nothing, nothing but the pound of Sirius’s heart.  
  
And then-  
_  
“Go?”_ He spit the word, a curse. “Go? His entire family is dead. _James, Lily, Euphemia._ The fucking Prewett cousins, Great-Aunt Mathilde. There’s no one left. I’m his godfather. _You’re_ his godfather. He’s supposed to be with us.”  
  
Remus was shaking his head. “Lily’s sister”-  
  
“Lily’s muggle, magic-hating sister who refused to come to her wedding? _Who hasn’t spoken to her since she was fifteen?”  
_  
“A protection that runs in blood, to keep him safe”-  
  
“ _I will keep him safe,_ ” Sirius hissed, and it would have been better if he shouted. Roared. That voice was every bit of darkness war had taught and grief had raised up strong- that voice said, _I’ll kill anyone who comes to take him, anyone.  
_  
_“Sirius._ I know.”  
  
He knew- but they both knew if Dumbledore wanted to fight for it, they were screwed. Wizarding law valued blood kinship above all else- they were godfathers only in written sense, the muggle ritual for Lily, none of the kin magic old families used.  
  
They’d been eighteen. 

They’d been stupid.  
  
If the head Mugwump of the Wizengamont said actual family, even muggle, was better, he’d win.  
_  
They’d lose Harry._

_***_

Sirius told Remus about the funeral.  
  
The monument, in the obliterated remains of the secret little Godric’s Hollow cottage. The jubilant celebration, the trials, Harry slowly stopping saying _mama,_ but nonetheless still asking the elves where _kitty_ went.  
_  
Gingersnap_ , Remus had breathed, with a laugh- a hoarse cry, until he was choking on tears.  
  
Sirius had no tears left. He’d thought, those first few months, that Remus was dead too. All he could do was sit before the fire, dry-eyed, the observer of overdue mourning. Hug Remus and pretend he wasn’t, not at all, wishing _he could burn it all down.  
_  
This beautiful world, the magical house. This home that had welcomed them both when no where else could, _Harry’s home_ , but not- not ever again, Lily’s. Jamies.  
  
Thinking that it wouldn’t be hard to find someone qualified to run the various Potter enterprises. That Dumbledore might be a hero here and there, but he didn’t have a shred of legal authority in France.  
  
Thinking the papers would cause a riot with the sopping story. Handsome, famous rebel Sirius Black, returned to the fold but reduced to tears that his godchild would be raised by muggles.  
  
The Boy who Lived, _living without magic.  
_  
He did none of those things.  
  
Harry woke with the sun, a whole eight hours without nightmares, a happy baby shriek of _Pa’foot!, e_ ars-splitting.  
  
Friendly, a curious child despite quite literally his entire life in hiding- or perhaps, _because of it_ , Sirius sometimes bleakly thought- Harry didn’t remember Lupin, but reached for him all the same. Shoving a drooly Gingersnap the second into Sirius’s arms for safekeeping, their godson kept up a cheerful babble all the way to breakfast.  
  
It took a full month to convince Remus to stay.  
  
James- _bright, laughing, loyal and vibrant to the end, James_ \- might have died too soon, but he had, apparently, been prepared. Been ready to die. It was all there in papers, neat little bows. Harry into his godfather’s custody. The estate, the guardianship, anything legal the government might fuck with if Remus were discovered to be a werewolf, safe in just Sirius’s hands. 

But Lupin’s name was still everywhere, still just as enfolded.  
  
An estate pension, the words in Jamie’s familiar scrawl- _for the brightest wizard I know to be compensated for providing the private magical education of the Potter Heir, until such time he is of age to attend Hogwarts, and any generations that follow.  
_  
The dream of Remus Lupin since he was twelve years old, that he’d never once imagined he could have: to teach.  
  
Instructions left for everything from Fleamont’s prodigious business assets in both the magical and muggles worlds to what Lily wanted done with her jewelry- buried with her wedding ring, but the incredibly ugly heirloom piece James had given her as a engagement ring saved for Harry to _‘flail over when he’s old enough and in love’.  
_  
They’d thought of everything.  
_  
They’d thought-  
_  
Sirius was the one who ran into fights head first. Who was stupid enough to punch Death Eaters and _then_ fire curses. Who’d been looking that last dark year of the war, for a way out just as much as he’d been an ending.  
_  
They’d thought he’d live_ \- and left it all in his hands.  
  
Sirius made it halfway through the will and documents before he had to stop. Make sure Harry was happily chasing butterflies in the garden. Watch him- laughing, alive, safe under the brief glow of a sunny afternoon before the spring rains.  
  
Retreat behind a locked door and silencing charm to hurl an entire shelves worth of antique crystal against the walls of the study. Dresden porcelain. Water glasses worth more than a months rent in muggle London. Anything he could get his hands on.

They’d been ready to die.  
_  
They’d trusted him.  
_  
Sirius felt like he was going to burn out of his own body at the thought.  
  
Eventually, thick beautiful Persian carpets finely frosted in shattered pieces, Sirius knelt down. Painstakingly, one by jagged one, repaired each and every vessel to float them back to their original locations throughout the house.  
  
He pulled himself back up, dizzy, _furious,_ and sat back at the desk.  
  
There were twenty-five more pages to get through.  
  
That was the night he went and got the first tattoo.  
  
The day after the fifth, back prickling tight with the faint intrusion of the artists magic, ten months gone, Dumbledore sent a letter.  
  
It was Remus, green-eyed familiar across a the breakfast table, watching Sirius burn holes in the brief, polite note, who insisted they see the man. It was _Dumbledore._ Greatest light wizard of their time, headmaster of the school that had given them a family, _the man they’d trusted-  
_  
Sirius didn’t have any trust left.

Hadn’t from the second Remus told him what the old coot wanted. It had ceased to matter- Dumbledore, who’d founded the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore, who’d defeated Grindlewald.  
  
Dumbledore, who they’d handed their lives to.  
  
Dumbledore, who’d saved Severus Snape from Azkaban.  
  
Dumbledore, who’d sent Remus so deeply and dangerously undercover James died thinking he was dead.  
  
Sirius should have stopped sooner- maybe if he had, Harry would still have parents.

So Remus replied, polite and distant, that yes, they would love to receive the man who’d been their headmaster and far off general. Yes, they could have _tea._ Every weary word, glittering yellow in his gaze- Sirius knew exactly what he was looking at.

Remus would always fight if he had too- but he’d also exhaust every option for peace first. Gentle Hope Lupin’s only child, a man who still, _still,_ believed in a better world.

Sirius knew exactly what the world had to offer.

***

Door locked. 

Threshold sealed. 

Air deadened to outside ears.

To say Sirius had a plan was not exactly right- he had a plan, Sirius always _had_ a plan- but it was not an action that could be carried out alone, and not one he could simply ask a willing pair of hands to lend aid to.  
  
There were things Sirius needed. 

Velvet and hardwood and books, the study the house had made him warded from the inside out.

A burning fire. 

A decanter.

A knife, in Sirius’s grip, newly tattooed knuckles shifting silver alchemic symbols frantically into new shapes with each pounding beat of his heart. 

He was ready by ten pm, Lupin’s eternally responsible sleep schedule balm and benefit. Eleven passed in a haze. Midnight witching hour may have been late enough, but Sirius knew what he was doing. 

Black family magic liked best predawn darkness, where nothing seemed to exist but stars. 

So would she, he knew too.

It was with numb easy distance that Sirius, unflinching, heard the clocks toll. Like sleepwalking, like dreaming- _was it not always some liminal, glorious, nightmare with her?_ \- Sirius plunged the knife into his thigh in one smooth motion.

And yelled.  
  
It would take time- it would take blood- he’d forgotten how badly it would hurt, the dropping dizzy cold of blood loss allowed to go on and on. But they’d need it. The panic was just beginning to slide into the haze of his vision, dark and promising, when the house began to murmur.

Whisper.

Warn.

_Company._

Flopping- his legs didn’t want to bend, fingers numb- Sirius hauled himself sitting upright before the fire. Groaned and leant back, like seeping bloody puddles on robes was part of the _look,_ blew his hair out of his face and waited.

She didn’t disappoint.

The whip crack of Narcissa’s apparition that he’d oh so careful taught the wards when he was all of sixteen, the heady scent of her perfume. Sillage or shadow? 

Both, he thought, the sheer brightness of her in firelight casting the whole room darker.

_Silver, gold, Cissa_ \- the blue of enchantment.  
  
The surprise was not in the end that she’d come- he hated her, he loved her, he’d never believed for a second she’d stay away _but he’d been wrong before_ \- but the sleeping bundle in her arms, downy blond curls visible.

She didn’t even look at him.

Three spells, in perfect silence. Couch cushions to a palatial crib, Draco tucked safe inside, a shimmering net encasing what she had created: protection, silence, home-brew magic not unlike what Sirius had done to the study to keep all comers but another Black away.

The picture of damnable grace, Narcissa Malfoy sank to the floor beside Sirius, scrupulously outside the range of blood splatter his magic-strong body was still seeking to spurt.

She looked at him, purposefully chosen beautiful robes pulled rakish and now ruined. The hair Sirius would pretend he wasn’t vain as all hell about, falling over his face and painting even more improper his bared collar, shifting tattoos running across Sirius’s ribs.  
_  
Fawn, stag, wolf, owl-_

She looked at the blade, sunk deep to bone, and raised one perfect brow. “Is that one of Cedrella’s?”  
  
A grimace, a smile. The incoming blackness had absolutely nothing on meeting her silvery gaze.

Cissa tapped the bloodslick hilt, perfect manicure ringing faintly on spell forged steel. “One of her poisoned daggers.” It wasn’t a question. She held Sirius’s fluttering eyes with hers for one more endless second, and scoffed. “Idiot. _Reckless, dangerous, foolish, idiot._ ”  
  
On the second repetition, she ripped out the knife.  
  
She healed the wound, nails biting into his thigh, punishing grip sealing shut his rended skin.  
  
And then, without giving Sirius a second to blink as his body threw off the shock, as pain melted away, Narcissa slapped him across the face.  
_  
Hard,_ but with the open hand that she wore not a single ring upon.  
  
Ears ringing, Sirius grinned. “Hello, Narcissa.”  
  
Temper- he saw it, he knew it, _he felt it_ \- flashed like lightening across her face, and gone. “Don’t call me that.”  
  
“Lady Malfoy.”  
  
She stood up, dawn-colored silk fluttering to reveal long bare legs, peignoir a perfect match. Risen from her bed, Sirius could understand, robe thrown on hasty- to check on her son?  
  
To grab her son, to take with her, because she didn’t trust to leave him behind?  
  
Draco in her arms, haste enough to not even tie it shut, for _worry?  
_  
He was eye level with her knee and Sirius- Sirius had to shut his eyes.  
  
Which she evidently watched him do, by the acidic hiss that emerged from what he knew to be a perfect mouth, _“Sirius.”_  
  
One breath. Not enough. He wanted a cigarette. A drink. Another fucking stab wound for her to grab. “Cissa.”  
  
A crack, an altogether different hiss, the fragrant log in the fire breaking apart under heat, warm air full of smoke and cedar.  
  
“You have ten seconds to tell me what you want.”  
  
No question, no real explanation- Narcissa, who might as well read his fucking mind. Knew he’d never want to die now, Harry in his care. Knew he’d do unspeakable things to stay alive, if only for love.  
  
Madness, a knife to an artery, _nothing._  
  
Sirius opened his eyes.  
  
“I need to adopt Harry.” He failed to smile, to lie. “And you know it takes two Blacks to bind.”  
  
“You’re his godfather,” Narcissa drawled, “He’s already bound. And by his own parents too. You cannot find stronger, not even between the two of us or our most ancient enchantments.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No?” It was a scoff, until she actually looked down at Sirius, still supplicant on the ground before her. On his knees. When was the last time she’d seen him like this? Sixteen before a roaring fire, the last of stolen hours. Seventeen, trying to break the binding of her betrothal until it nearly killed them both, backlash more real than pain. _“No.”  
_  
He shook his head. “No. You know Lily was- was muggle born. You know blood magic is not-“  
  
A laugh, caught mean and more than a little glorious in her throat. “Not what, _Sirius?_ Fashionable? _A little too dark?_ Magic is magic, we make it so with intent.”  
_  
“I don’t give a shit”-_  
  
The lie dissipated before he could say it. Sirius might rail and rail against his insane pureblood parents, against the arcane bullshit of their childhoods. But magic _was_ magic. All that was real and good and eternal in the world.  
  
Magic was beautiful.  
_  
Magic was what made them.  
  
You are a Black- the stars themselves live in your veins- magic that is might, magic that is purpose, power that will make the world, so hung beneath the sky- we make the night sky- the sun always sets and so the world will always have magic to be found- you need not look for it is yours, yours, Sirius Orion Arcturus-  
_  
He swallowed down the bitter words. “I need your help.”  
  
Raw, real, _wrong._  


Narcissa spun on her heel and beelined for the decanter of whiskey. Poured a single drink- he didn’t watch her throat, _he didn’t_ , the sting of her slap was just starting to fade and _stars bind him Sirius wanted to feel it again_ \- and raised those damnable brows once more, symmetry so perfect her face could have been used to summon. “Are you telling me the last Potter is only your godchild on _paper?”  
_  
“That anyone could walk into this house and take him and you couldn’t stop them? That he could be lost and your magic wouldn’t find him? That you will _raise_ him, but in danger, he couldn’t be saved with the second it would take to apparate to Black land? _Sirius.”  
_  
Blood dried tacky, Sirius pulled from it with a grimace and stood. Told her the truth, exhaustion slumped shoulder pressed to the mantle. “Albus Dumbledore wants to take him from me and give him to be raised by his muggle relatives.”  
  
Narcissa’s knuckles went white.  
  
“Dumbledore.” It was a sneer.  
  
“A child of blood cannot to be broken from the family line.” Sirius would know- burnt off the family tree, thrown to the streets, and here he was, the last Lord Black still.  
  
She tapped the glass. Not a stall, not even a tell, his eyes drawn to her elegant hands. It had been so very long since they’d played the game. “What will you give me, for my help?”  
  
What Sirius wanted to give her couldn’t be _given._ What Sirius could give her would make him hate himself and her. What Sirius would give, was easy. “Anything.”  
  
A twirl of pale fingertips- despite himself, despite everything, Sirius felt the smile flicker across his own face at what appeared outstretched in her free hand- a lit muggle cigarette, the absolutely wretched French brand they’d stolen from Andromeda for years.  
  
Sirius took it.  
  
Inhaled long and slow- absorbing just as much the intriguing proof that Narcissa’s magic wrapped around her child was completely impermeable, battle-class spellcraft as much as the fact that she was doubtless, absolutely, going to ask for something he didn’t want to give.  
_  
Not_ something he’d enjoy her dragging out of him.  
  
With a crisp clink, Narcissa set her glass on the mantle peice and looked up at him. “You need to go to Gringotts and tithe for the goblins to recognize you as Lord Black.”  
  
“I’m already _Lord Black._ ”  
  
Uncontested, the family magic had settled on his shoulders like gravity itself. Sirius III, The Most Ancient and Noble Lord Sirius Orion Arcturus Black. His mother, _hell,_ her mother, was probably rolling in her grave still at the fact.  
  
Sirius all alone, holding up a sky of stars that didn’t answer back.  
  
Serene and perfect, Narcissa said, “You are. And you will be.”  
  
And then she took the cigarette he’d unthinkingly held out to her, like this wasn’t the first time in years that they’d been in the same room together, rust stain of his grip smearing beneath her fingertips.  
  
He watched her inhale. Exhale, his mind racing.  
  
Duties that came with the title; once, an actual in-depth responsibility that was more than financial, when the Black clan had been prosperous. Before they’d intermarried so heavily the next generations shrank each and every union. 

“There’s not anyone left to rule.”  
  
Everyone died in the war- those who fought, those who wouldn’t or couldn’t fight, children taken to spur the sympathies of the elite. Actual born Blacks still walking could be counted on one hand: Narcissa, Andromeda, who’d all but stopped living in the magical world, and Sirius himself.  
  
Narcissa tapped ash into the fireplace, like she wasn’t standing in the puddle of his own half-dry blood, in the shadow of Sirius’s body. Cool. Calm. Absolutely fucking unruffled. “That isn’t true.”  
  
Raking a hand through his hair, Sirius was reaching to steal back the cigarette when he understood what she meant. Froze. Growled in absolute, utter disbelief. “ _Cissa._ I’m not a _politician._ ”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
“Unbelievable. You think I’m going to what? Go play nice with the stuck-up, backwards, Pureblooded pricks? _That_ -“  
  
Another blade straight through his skin, Narcissa shrugged, motion elegant enough it failed the word itself, and said. “So _don’t_.”  
  
Sirius met her blazing, burning gaze right in time for her composure to disappear. It was all her- all Black, temper that said something _so much more than rage_ \- in the words as she snarled, “Disagree. Fight them on everything from wand regulation to taxation. _I don’t care._ Those old men are worthless and their time has _passed._ Do you know what I care about, Sirius?”  
  
Did he care?  
  
Had it not damned him over a hundred times?  
  
Of course he _cared_ \- Sirius would always, always care. But he didn’t always agree.  
  
“That the Black seat sits empty in the Wizengamont, in the House of Lords, for the first time in _twenty-six generations._ That the voice of our family doesn’t exist in restructuring the _world.”  
  
“Cissa,”_ Sirius interrupted, “You know god damn well I’m not going to play by the rules. You know what my first bill will be? Werewolf rights. You think that’ll play well for _family honor_ ”-  
  
“Are werewolves not _wizards_?” She sniffed, infuriating.  
_  
“What”-_  
  
“They are _magical,_ are they not?” Cissa hissed, triumphant poison. “Ours. Our blood, our kin. Wizards when the moon is not high, and with proper magic the beast can be controlled. We could eradicate attacks in a generation.”  
_  
“What are you talking about_ ,” Sirius roared.  
  
She smiled. “Werewolves.”  
  
It was physical effort, heart pounding heat in his blood for Sirius to remember not to _reach._ Blood loss and late hour, the damnable rhythms of a life lost- he couldn’t touch her. Sirius could never touch her again.  
  
They weren’t the same people anymore.  
  
Sirius swallowed. “Fine. I’ll take office.”  
  
She leaned back, smug, and fetched back down her drink to sip. “You’ll serve the Lordship in full. The Black name will live. And when the Board of Governors of Hogwarts School, where you also have a seat, finds just cause to remove Albus Dumbledore, you will not interfere.”  
  
Nightmare, dream, fucking perfect- she’d had the first favor in mind already, but Sirius would stake all that he loved that the addition of tearing down Dumbledore had become a sacrosanct addendum the second she’d learned the old man wanted to take Sirius’s godchild.  
  
“Dumbledore has many supporters,” Sirius drawled.  
  
She raised a brow, “Maybe now. Maybe many less, in nine years.”  
  
“And Snape?”  
  
The last piece, the only vengeance Sirius would ever get. Dainty, the little twist of a sneer on her mouth became even more pronounced. “Severus Snape mourns every day the woman he fed to doom. He’s a marked man.”  
  
What they’d always agreed on, what real Blacks breathed: loyalty.  
  
A man with none and no spine besides, left to watch over their children- fair and easy game.  
  
Sirius dropped the last vestige of the cigarette into the fire, wordless charm taking ash and blood from his skin. He held out a hand.  
  
Steady synchronicity, the moves of this cursed, beloved dance, Narcissa unfurled her grip directly above his. A pause, a beat, so close Sirius could feel the faint heat of her always just a little cool hands on his clean skin, the motion of an agreement made where no contact could be allowed.  
_  
Could it be allowed_ , his stupid, reckless heart whispered. _Where is the line?_ She’d touched him before, grabbed him. If it hurt only him Sirius didn’t care, but the contract that held her was moored deep enough to kill.  


Almost had, more than once. 

Rough, the drawling tone a _lie,_ Sirius said, “We bind.”  
  
The weapon of her smile unsheathed, Narcissa purred, “We agree.”  
  
He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe- Sirius remained frozen in place as Narcissa snapped her fingers, dancing out of the puddle that once more liquified, as the blood on his clothes and skin coalesced back to warm vitality.  
  
As she sliced her palm to spill her own blood into the mess, bloodline to bloodline, continuity that made magic.  
  
With the gleaming glow of silver light turning all that slaughterhouse red blued and beautiful, the liquid moved as though by itself. Spooled outward, spiraling into symbols of home and belonging, possession and love, painted a circle that could not be broken.  
  
Narcissa stepped to the center, unbound white hair shining down her back.  
  
Wordless, Sirius left the room. Silent, steady, returned and handed into her arms the deadweight of his sleeping godson.  
  
And Narcissa _smiled._ Touched with light, bloody fingers his chubby cheeks, forehead and chin, murmured in a voice so pleased Sirius half thought he imagined it, “Hello, Harry Potter. You will make a fine Black, won’t you?”  
  
Harry didn’t stir, lowered carefully to the floor, blood sigils flashing in recognition.  
  
He joined her, standing toe to toe. Black magic- _black magic,_ to so very many small minded idiots, to so many people now terrified that blood magic was all darkness, that all darkness hid danger rather than mystery.  
  
In a few generations, at the rate the world was going, it would be lost.  
  
Sirius knew unequivocally that his parents hadn’t even used it for single good thing. Nor Narcissa’s, maybe not even a single of the elder Blacks, Alpard notwithstanding. It _could_ be used for evil.  
  
It could be used for anything, he knew, blood enchantment singing around them in a rising haze.  
  
Binding, making, recognizing.  
  
It was magic, _it was their’s,_ and Sirius would use it to burn the whole damned world before he’d let Harry live without a family, ever again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next up: Dumbledore twinkles his eyes unhappily at being thwarted, Sirius Black wears a leather jacket to Wizard Parliament....and why is Narcissa still wearing that necklace?
> 
> Also featuring Remus Lupin...with a crush?


End file.
